Description
Gainare Tottori are a professional soccer team in the J. League. Their home towns are Tottory city, Yonago city, Kurayoshi city and Sakaiminato city from Tottori prefecture. At the moment they are part of the J3 League. Their home stadium is the Tottori Bank Bird Stadium.
The team was founded in 1983 in Yonago city as the Tottori Teachers’ Soccer Club. In 1989 the name was changed to SC Tottori and they promoted to the Japan Football League in 2001. The club got its present day name, Gainare in 2007 and on the same year they were accepted as associate members of the J. League.
In 2007 on their first season in JFL the team’s efforts to improve their results did not bear fruit and they finished in 14th place. That being said, things changed in 2008 when players with J1 experience, like former Japan national team member Norio Omura, who during his heyday played defense in Yokohama F. Marinos together with Masami Ihara, along with new talented foreign players reinforced the team, helping to secure 5th place that year.
In the end of the season Norio Omura retired, but thanks to the influence of Masayuki Okano, Toshihiro Hattori, who were former Samurai Blue players and also appeared in the World Cup, the team won their first JFL championship in 2010 in record speed with 5 games remaining. This allowed Gainare Tottori to start in J2 the following year.
After moving to J2 the team struggled every year hovering in the lower end of the league and on their third season in 2013 they dropped to last place. In the J2-JFL relegation match against JFL’s 2nd place holder Kamatamare Sanuki they were defeated with 1 tie 1 loss and fell down to J3 League.
In 2014 Masanobu Matsunami, who was affectionately called “Mr Gamba” by his supporters, became head coach and Masayuki Okano was hired as general manager. With the changes in players and management on their first year in the J3 League they reached 3rd place, being only a step away from being promoted back to J2.
After that Tetsuji Hashiratani and Ryuzo Morioka, who during their time were J1 caliber players, joined as managers, but the teamｴs results have not changed for the better and they are still fighting to rise back to J2.
The team’s jersey is green and after the team was renamed to Gainare Tottori in 2007 their outfits have been provided by “hummel”. Their shirts are decorated by logos of local sponsors like “Tottori Gas”, “KOTOBUKI SPIRITS” and others.